Hair salon marketing: What are the important tools?

The INDISPENSABLE tools for hair salons

Hairdressers, your business sector could not be more competitive and for good reason… It is the second most important craft industry in France, as La Tribune reported in July 2018 (https://www.latribune.fr/supplement/le-secteur-de-la-coiffure-en-france-un-marche-en-evolution-785552.html). Fortunately, there are many marketing and communication tools to help you stand out and optimise the visibility of your trade show!

83,199 hairdressing salons have been listed since 2016 by the National Union of Hairdressing Companies (UNEC). Moreover, the sector has recorded an increase of 400 establishments compared to the end of 2014. And this increase is not about to stop. To stand out, you will need to think about both your marketing and communication strategies. In your sector, the tools are numerous and diversified!

Implement a good marketing strategy

Your shop window

To catch the eye of your customers and prospects, opt for an original window display that conveys the identity of your salon. Colourful, busy, sober, design, uncluttered, it doesn’t matter… The main thing is that your window display corresponds to what you want to convey about your image. A beautiful window will necessarily attract more customers, who will walk through the door of your hair salon to enter your world.

The interior of your salon

Whatever image, identity you have chosen to showcase your hair salon, make sure it is consistent with your shop window and the type of services you offer.

Make sure that the hygiene is impeccable and that your products or beauty treatments are appealing. For example, by putting them at the height of your customers so that they can take a look and find what they need.

Seduction operations

One of the best ways to stand out and therefore make yourself known is also to think about preparing quality marketing operations, events such as a makeover day, a make-up or hair “tuto” afternoon. You can also call on influencers who can visit your salon and promote your services and your salon.

Key dates can also help you set up marketing operations. For February 14th, brief your teams and organise a day of reduced prices for glamorous hairstyles. For December 31, do things in a big way, highlight your products, your flagship treatments and offer your customers chic and original evening make-up and hairstyles.

An off-line and on-line communication strategy

Two kinds of strategies are available to you, off-line communication, i.e. posters, articles in the press, stickers on your car, etc. And online communication, on your website or on social networks.

Off-line communicationThere are many channels for off-line communication:

Boarding at metro exits
Business cards
Sponsored bags
Street marketing (flyers)
Partnerships with photographers in your area, beauty salons, nursing homes (who very often need partnerships with hairdressers)

In an off-line communication strategy you can ask local and/or regional radio stations to advertise you, as well as regional and/or local newspapers. Communication in the media works very well.

The importance of off-line communication

Despite the resurgence of online communication, off-line communication is extremely important. On the one hand, this type of communication will allow your salon to precisely target its clientele. If you opt for street marketing and therefore the distribution of flyers, you will certainly have prospects from your sector who will come to your trade fair.
On the other hand, off-line communication generates a higher rate of customer confidence than on-line communication, whether for generation Y or for older generations, who are much more used to this type of communication.

Off-line and on-line communication are in fact complementary. Each of the two strategies targets a completely different clientele.
What these two strategies have in common is that they both require precise preparation, a briefing of your team prior (at least two months before) to any event.

Online communication

The essential tool: the website

If there is a powerful tool, whose effects and impacts on turnover are guaranteed and factual, it is the website. Hairdressers are struggling to go digital. UNEC should therefore provide free training courses to help hairdresser managers and owners to go digital.

However, the stakes are high! Having a professional website allows your client to have access to all the services you offer, your telephone number, the address of the salon, etc. The photos or videos on your website will be a real asset and will allow your client to imagine himself in the salon. A website allows any Internet user to project themselves.

Ergonomic, functional, intuitive, design, responsive design, all these qualities make your website a real virtual showcase that will only help you to have more customers or to target your customers or simply to give credibility to your company.

If someone hears about you and wants to know more about you, they can search for you on the internet and find your website.

This site also allows you to set up an online diary (with online appointments), to manage your customer files online and thus to optimise customer loyalty and satisfaction.

You can also display on this site “before and after” photos of your clients, to further highlight your quality services.

To have a website, it is essential to work with a web agency specialising in website creation and natural referencing. Developers, graphic designers, computer graphics designers and web writers combine their multiple skills to enable companies to optimise their visibility on the web.

Social networks

Social networks also allow to get more visibility and to reach a specific community of people.
A viral photo or video (the arrival of an influencer for example) could create a buzz and make you known in record time.

If you are on social networks, be it Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, you should hire a community manager. He or she will be in charge of publishing frequently on your different accounts, promoting your activity or the marketing “seduction” operations you will implement. This is where the complementarity between off-line communication, marketing strategy and on-line communication is interesting.

Between marketing strategy and communication plan (media, non-media, on-line and off-line), professionals in the hairdressing sector have very effective means and tools at their disposal to be able to stand out, to highlight their products, their treatments, their services and their brands.
Do not hesitate to use a good number of these channels and to make them complementary to optimise your visibility, your reputation and to enhance the quality of your services.

What are the important marketing tools for developing your salon?